Tagged With "Story of Your Number"
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Interview: Trauma-Informed Care with Transition-Age Youth [psychologytoday.com]
Last month, an article titled “The Tragedy of Baltimore” in the New York Times Magazine described the upsurge in violence in a city long known for its “blight, suburban flight, segregation, drugs , racial inequality, [and] concentrated poverty.” At the center of the storm are transition-age youth, who too often face long odds and challenging futures in the communities where they live. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Patricia Cobb-Richardson , MS. For the past 20 years, she has...
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Interview: Trauma-Informed Care with Transition-Age Youth [psychologytoday.com]
Last month, an article titled “The Tragedy of Baltimore” in the New York Times Magazine described the upsurge in violence in a city long known for its “blight, suburban flight, segregation, drugs , racial inequality, [and] concentrated poverty.” At the center of the storm are transition-age youth, who too often face long odds and challenging futures in the communities where they live. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Patricia Cobb-Richardson , MS. For the past 20 years, she has...
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Interview: Trauma-Informed Care with Transition-Age Youth [psychologytoday.com]
Last month, an article titled “The Tragedy of Baltimore” in the New York Times Magazine described the upsurge in violence in a city long known for its “blight, suburban flight, segregation, drugs , racial inequality, [and] concentrated poverty.” At the center of the storm are transition-age youth, who too often face long odds and challenging futures in the communities where they live. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Patricia Cobb-Richardson , MS. For the past 20 years, she has...
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Introducing myself, Morgan Vien & NEW Practicing Resilience Community
Hello! I’m a Community Manager for the Practicing Resilience for Self-Care & Healing community. This is an introduction to me and this new community. I graduated with a B.S. in Public Health from Santa Clara University June 2017. And I’m interested in preventing chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, at the community and population level by addressing biological, psychological, and social factors that affect chronic disease outcomes. As the...
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Is the Solution Really for More Children to Enter Foster Care? [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Last week , in a provocative op-ed in the Washington Post , Naomi Schaefer Riley – a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – argued that the problem in America’s child welfare system is “not that we’re taking too many children away from their parents. We’re not taking enough.” To support her claim, she cited a mishmash of statistics, including an increase in the national child fatality rate, and then some isolated data from two jurisdictions involving re-entry rates for children...
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Left Behind: Trump's Immigration Plans Could Spur Uptick in Foster Care Numbers [socialjusticesolutions.org]
As we begin a new year, a new presidency, and new policies on immigration, it’s vital for child welfare leaders to increase coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to address the impacts of deportation policies on children who remain in the US, often in a foster care placement, following the deportation of their parents. Having experienced a significant lack of coordination between child welfare and immigration systems, including barriers to reunification in my own practice,...
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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Questioning, and/or Gender Nonconforming and Transgender Girls and Boys in the California Juvenile Justice System: A Practice Guide [nclrights.org]
If you are a child welfare professional working with youth in California, chances are this practice guide may be a useful resource! Developed by Impact Justice and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and published in January 2017, this practice guide is designed to provide probation department practice guidelines, and policy recommendations for working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning, and/or gender nonconforming and transgender girls and boys who interface with the California...
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Lois Henry: Upping the bar for foster children [bakersfield.com]
A new law in California, effective this year, is reducing the number of groups home and congregate care facilities. This law is part of a larger framework called the Continuum of Care Reform (Assembly Bill 403). This editorial by Lois Henry sheds light on the plans of one California community, Bakersfield, to reduce group-care and increase the number of foster homes. Including efforts to level the playing field for relative caregivers and streamline the permanent plan of adoption.Zachary...
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Making the Good Stuff Louder: Trauma Dad, Bryon Hamel
Byron Hamel, (AKA Trauma Dad ), is a filmmaker , children's rights and men's wellness advocate. He's also a father with "ACEs through the roof," who survived child torture at the hands of a man now on death row for infanticide. Before the Father & ACEs chat started last week (see full chat transcript ), we discussed if and how to give a trigger warning. Hamel's experienced horrific trauma during childhood. He didn't want to traumatize those on the chat but wanted to be honest.
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Mark your calendar for March 10 tweet chat on CA ACEs screening!
Hey ACEs Connection communities! Please join us for a boisterous tweet chat about ACEs screening in California on March 10 at 10 am Pacific/ 1 pm Eastern for #SaludTues, hosted by @saludamerica and co-hosted by @CYWSanFrancisco, @acesconnection and @CHCShealth. Get your thumbs ready, and spread the word! What: Tweet chat Who: Salud America, co-hosted by Center for Youth Wellness, ACEs Connection and Center for Health Care Strategies. When: Tuesday, March 10, 10am Pacific/ 1 pm Eastern Why:...
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Millions sought to stem arrests at California foster care shelters (sfchronicle.com)
A California lawmaker is calling for $22.7 million in state funding to help prevent unwarranted arrests of abused and neglected children in the state’s residential foster-care facilities — a disturbing practice exposed in a Chronicle investigation last year. The three-year budget proposal, to be introduced next week by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson (Los Angeles County), comes as arrests continue across the state at county children’s shelters, despite pledges of reform. While the total...
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Mom Has a Kitchen Dance Party With 3-Yr-Old. Then She Hears “I Miss My Other Daddy.” (faithit.com)
Being a foster parent is not for the faint of heart. A cycle of taking in broken, wounded little hearts, often just for them to get broken and wounded again — all while remaining “unattached” for the sake of their assured departure from your care — is a nearly impossible job for most to fathom undertaking. And all that aside, how do you even begin to explain to a 3-year-old that they have a “new daddy” or “new mommy” in a way that doesn’t completely wreck their perception of what it means to...
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National Survey Finds Expanding Number of College Programs for Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The number of college assistance programs for current and former foster youth is growing, but there are still major gaps in helping students access them, according to a national survey of state-run colleges. The goal of the survey, produced by the First Star Institute’s Foster Youth Success in College Project, is “to provide a more detailed current look at what these programs look like, how extensive they are throughout the country, and to detail best practices in place in different parts of...
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Needed: A New Vision of Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The number of children in foster care has increased for the third straight year. Foster parent shortages have been reported in at least 24 states , with children staying in offices and hotels. The move by some states to close residential programs will only exacerbate these shortages. At the same time, many current foster homes are failing to provide the nurturing and attention that their wards so desperately need. Yet child welfare leaders are surprisingly devoid of bold and creative ideas...
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New California Laws May Prevent the Overmedication of Foster Kids (elevaterehab.org)
In the past, lawmakers didn’t think twice about how doctors treated foster children suffering from emotional traumas such as abandonment and abuse. Nobody controlled how often practitioners prescribed psychiatric drugs that had serious potential for doing more harm than good. Today, investigations into California’s foster care system shed light on the doctors who fuel medication problems by inappropriately prescribing narcotics to the state’s most vulnerable children – ultimately leading to...
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New Podcast Series Advocates for Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
After leaving foster care, Jessica Francis had to grow up alone, often looking to Google for guidance. “I had to figure out a lot of things on my own,” Francis said in an interview on the Foster Movement Podcast , produced by the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO). In the podcast’s pilot episode, Francis shared her personal experience of navigating the foster care system starting at age of 12 before later pursuing higher education and career. Without any other options, young adults...
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Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom by Yolo CAPC and YCCA
The Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) and Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) are excited to share Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom. This guide for parents and caregivers, which we are launching during Child Abuse Prevention Month, contains tips and resources that parents and caregivers can use to promote resilience in their children and themselves. Nurturing Children During Times of Stress explains the effects of intense stress or...
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On Child Welfare, an Insufficient Federal Response to the Opioid Epidemic [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
In 2012, following more than a decade of significant decline, the number of American children in foster care began rising. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of children in foster care nationally has increased by more than 10 percent. There is broad agreement that the ongoing opioid epidemic has been a primary contributor to those increases. Now, a recent research brief issued by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and...
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Oregon psychiatrist testifies before Senate Finance Committee on the impact of childhood adversity and toxic stress on adult health
Appearing before the powerful Senate Finance Committee in Washington, DC, recently, Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Health Share Oregon, devoted a significant portion of her testimony to the role of adversity and toxic stress during childhood on adult health, both physical and emotional. She explained how Health Share Oregon—that state’s largest Medicaid coordinated care organization—examined the people with the costliest health bills and found them to...
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Oregon sends hundreds of foster kids to former jails, institutions, not families
ROSEBURG — A move to improve the care of foster children relegated to living in hotels has resulted in 25 percent more children removed from their families being housed in institutions such as former juvenile jails, The Oregonian/OregonLive has found. The children being sent to cinderblock facilities are often the most traumatized and difficult to care for. Most are teens but the state is looking at expanding institutional programs for children as young as six. A year ago, Oregon child...
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Our Most Vulnerable Population - Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
Before the pandemic, grandparents raising grandchildren were already in a precarious situation. They were struggling to meet the needs of children exposed to maltreatment and trauma while also supporting the family financially. But now, we fear, things have made a critical turn for the worse while those grandparents become unemployed, sick, or in the worst-case scenario, die due to Corona Virus.
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Oxytocin Blunts Social Vigilance in the Rhesus Macaque (But this is the end of the last Talk I just listened to).
I'm listening to Van Der Kolk, MD (My Hero!!!!) tell us what he has to say about Stephen J. Suomi's talk: "Thanks Steve, I am really delighted that these presentations are being video taped and the reason why I am...
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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8 (The National Academies Press 2016)
A study published by The National Academies of Sciences in 2016 resulting in 10 Recommendations to build support for parents... "Over the past several decades, researchers have identified parenting- related knowledge, attitudes, and practices that are associated with improved developmental outcomes for children and around which parenting- related programs, policies, and messaging initiatives can be designed. However, consensus is lacking on the elements of parenting that are most important...
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Parenting with PTSD One Liners & Parenting with ACEs Chat Reminder
Parents with PTSD from ACEs sharing what's hard about parenting while post-traumatically stressed: "Managing the terror around the possibility of everyone being a perp." "How to talk to children about why they won't meet X relative." “There was a point when I would feel completely overwhelmed by something as simple as having to make breakfast and school lunches at the same time.” "I didn't understand that not all parents reacted or were triggered the way I was." "was stone set on not...
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Partners in Planning — When parents and caseworkers work together, families move in the right direction (www.risemagazine.org)
Link to entire piece here . Excerpt below:
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Building Bridges - Center offers safe place for children [arkansasonline.com]
Having worked in child welfare for close to two decades, I've seen my fair share of parent-child visitation take place in cold state or county offices, or a crowded play structure inside a fast food restaurant. The article referenced below aptly describes the limitations to both settings, environments unable to set parents or children up for successful, engaging, interactive visitation. Parent-child visitation is very important in child welfare, this is where relationships, connections, and...
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Building Resilience in Foster Children: The Role of the Child's Advocate [repository.law.umich.edu]
Children who enter the foster care system often suffer from the effects of traumatic stress. The sources of their trauma may vary: they may be the victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect-or they may be exposed to violence in their homes or communities. Similarly, many children who enter the child welfare system have experienced the loss of one or more significant adults in their lives, often through death or abandonment. Although the removal of a child from an abusive or...
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California has Begun Screening for Early Childhood Trauma, But Critics Urge Caution [sciencemag.org]
By Emily Underwood, Science, January 29, 2020 On 1 January, California became the first U.S. state to screen for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—early life hardships such as abuse, neglect, and poverty, which can have devastating health consequences in later life. The project is not just a public health initiative, but a vast experiment. State officials aim to cut the health impacts of early life adversity by as much as half within a generation. But critics say the health benefits of...
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Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents [NCTSN Resource]
Many children in foster or kinship care have a history of exposure to trauma. Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents (RPC) is a PowerPoint-based training curriculum designed to be taught by a mental health...
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Child Welfare and Human Trafficking - Connections Rooted in Trauma
Recently in Washington State, there has been a massive, multi-pronged coordinated effort to address Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) across systems. As this effort made its reach to child welfare, I was reminded of a documentary I watched years ago about two girls who were swept into a life of sexual exploitation, kept from their families and everything familiar. One of the girls was in and out of foster care and group homes, the other had run away from her family home, both...
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Child Welfare System Increasingly Relying on Relatives to Raise Children Exposed to Trauma [prnewswire.com]
Washington, DC "Thirty percent (127,819) of children in foster care are being raised by grandparents or other relatives, a six percent increase since 2008. In the wake of the opioid epidemic, that number is even more dramatic in the states hardest hit by the opioid epidemic like Ohio, which saw a 62 percent increase in the number of children placed with relatives in foster care since 2010. For each child in foster care with a relative, there are 20 children outside of the system with a...
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Childhood Trauma, Addiction, and Eating Disorders (Psychology Today)
By Carolyn C. Ross M.D., M.P.H. April 29, 2020, Real Healing. What Native American, African Americans, and Holocaust survivors have in common. Have you ever thought about traumatic experiences as having their roots in the lives of your parents or grandparents? Trauma can be defined as the loss of an essential part of ourselves — a sense of safety, of trust or security. Trauma ultimately has the ability to define our behaviors, actions, and sense of self. More and more research is also...
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Children in Care can Recover from Adversity with the Right Adoptive Environment, Research Finds [medicalxpress.com]
By Cardiff University, Medical Xpress, July 31, 2019 Research on adoptive family life in Wales has revealed the levels of adversity many children have experienced. Academics from Cardiff University analysed social services records of a cohort of children in Wales who were adopted in the same year. Adoptive parents also completed surveys about the children over a four-year period after the placement began, commenting annually on any difficulties the child was having and their parenting. The...
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Children of the Opioid Epidemic Are Flooding Foster Homes. America Is Turning a Blind Eye. (motherjones.com)
The scourge of addiction to painkillers, heroin, and fentanyl sweeping the country has produced a flood of bewildered children who, having lost their parents to drug use or overdose, are now living with foster families or relatives. In Ashtabula County, in Ohio's northeast corner, the number of children in court custody quadrupled from 69 in 2014 to 279 last year . "I can't remember the last time I removed a kid and it didn't have to do with drugs," says Mongenel, a quick-witted redhead.
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Come Chat with Dr. Claudia M. Gold: An ACE-Informed Pediatrician
Date: July 11th Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Location: Parenting with ACEs Group , Online Flyer: Attached below. Please share. Dr. Claudia M. Gold has practiced general and behavioral pediatrics for 25 years and specializes in early childhood mental health. She is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Boston Infant-Parent Mental Health program, William James College, and the Austen Riggs Center where she is a Human Development consultant. Dr. Gold is author of the following...
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Comfort in Chaos: Understanding Trauma Brain
I make no bones about it, as a foster child, I don’t think I was an easy person to get along with and I certainly wasn’t trying to make bonds or connections with those around me. I went into foster care at the age of 13. My life prior to entering the system was one of immense dysfunction, and I had practically raised myself. My mom was rarely around, and when she was it was usually to tell me that we were moving. We moved over 50 times and I went to more than 35 schools in my life before the...
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CRI Course 1: Trauma-Informed Training Webcast!
CRI Course 1: Trauma-Informed Training Webcast! Date: February 26, 2019 Time: 8am - 3pm Pacific Time A dynamic six-hour WEBCAST course, Course 1 introduces CRI’s capacity-building framework for building resilience, KISS. Knowledge, Insight, Strategies and Structure describes our community’s learning and movement from theory to practice and how to implement evidence-based strategies into action. The training includes three groups of topics: the NEAR sciences , a cluster of emerging scientific...
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Custody in Crisis: How Family Courts Nationwide Put Children in Danger
“Sometimes he would choke me until I passed out,” -- 16-year-old Alina said
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Data Sharing Tool Helps Educators and Caseworkers Focus on Foster Youth Success (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
As California continues to work to address educational disparities for foster students, an increasing number of counties in the state are buying into a homegrown data-sharing system designed to improve academic outcomes for the state’s foster youth. Since its rollout in 2000, 41 of California’s 58 counties have integrated Foster Focus, a web-based program that helps bridge the data gap between the education, child welfare and probation officials who share responsibility for the state’s...
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Defining Moments: Finding Peace After Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
“Maya Angelou’s book, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ was definitely that pivotal moment for me,” Sharrica said. “I think about how she responded to the tragedy in her life by turning in. It was profound to me because when you don’t have anything or anybody else – you can turn in.” How does one find peace within themselves? There is a lot of discussion right now about mindful meditation, communing with nature and that old standby, the power of positive thinking. But sometimes it’s hard to...
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Did you know how to change your ACEs Connection Notifications?
Did you know how to change your ACEs Connection Notifications? Have you been wanting to receive less emails from us? Or more? Look below for videos & link to blog posts on how to change these settings! Please leave questions or comments below! How-To: Customize Your Email Notifications for ACEs Connection Main Site How-To: Customize Your Email Notifications for ACEs Connection Communities
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“Does Anyone Want the Child?”: Mom’s Viral Response to the Question That Destroyed Her Boy Is Too Powerful to Ignore [faithit.com]
It is said that if just ONE family in every single church across America agreed to take in ONE foster child, there would be nobody left in the system. Think about that for a minute. How many families do you have at your church? How many churches do you have in your town? It would take just ONE of those families from each of those churches to close what seems like an impossible revolving door. Sarah and her husband learned of the overwhelming foster care needs while researching adoption...
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Donna Jackson Nakazawa Chats Live with Jane Stevens & You: Nov. 14th
Featured Guest: @Donna Jackson Nakazawa Topic: Well-Being, Self-Care & ACEs Date: November 14th, 2017 Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Where: Here / Chats Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an winning researcher, writer and public speaker on health and family issues. She explores the intersection between neuroscience, immunology, and the deepest inner workings of the human heart. Her most recent book, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal , examines...
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Dr. Gabor Maté & Full-Potential Parenting, Even When It Is Hard
Note: Allison Morris had dozens of experts in her summit series through Full-Potential Parenting. I took notes only on those by Donna Jackson Nakazawa , Gabe Maté and Sebern Fisher (coming later this month). Though the audios are no longer available, for free, they can be purchased for $100. or less (depending on the year), here. Forgive me for sounding like an advertisement, I don't know Allison personally. I am a huge fan of all parent-led resources and wish I discovered this series...
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Early childhood programs can reduce the effects of trauma [missoulian.com]
Connecting very young children who've experienced adversity with high quality early childhood programs can provide both the child and the family with the tools, support, protective factors, and resources to address the effects of trauma on the child and the family. I've seen first hand the benefits early childhood programs can bring to families and communities. Often times, families who encounter child welfare don't need an extensive, court-involved child welfare intervention, and can be...
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Education resources, including mental health, for kids, families during coronavirus pandemic
We have an abundance of helpful links and posts swirling online to support families and school systems as we adjust to our new normal of learning while self-isolating at home. Thousands of free academic resources from the NYT student writing prompts, to the Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive Homeschool Resource list, to this excellent collection from BuzzFeed, and the ever-growing crowd-sourced collection aptly named Amazing Educational Resources are being shared. Our schools do so much more than...
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Eunju Lee's Research on Kinship Care: Informing a Community-based ACE Response
Eunju Lee, assistant professor at the University at Albany, is a leading contributor to a body of research focusing on kinship care. Kinship care occurs when children cannot safely stay in the care of their parents due to child maltreatment, parental substance abuse, parental mental health issues or other reasons. In these cases, relatives, or family friends in some jurisdictions, take over the care of the children. Kinship care is often utilized by child welfare services as a diversion from...
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EveryDay Strong: Teaching kids about family history helps increase resilience [heraldextra.com]
Resilience, or the ability to overcome challenges in life, is a trait many parents hope their children will develop. Resilient children are more likely to have good emotional and mental health. Research has shown that children who know more about their families and family history are more resilient and tend to do better when facing challenges in life. This may be because seeing patterns of overcoming failures and surviving hard times can help children recognize that people can recover and...
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Explaining behavior: Professional seek to address students' trauma [thenotebook.org]
Professionals from multiple disciplines working with children and families came together earlier this month in Philadelphia for a three-day conference on trauma-informed practice – the Greater Philadelphia Trauma Training . … About 360 people from the Philadelphia area and across the Eastern seaboard attended, she said, and about of 100 of them work with K-12 students. The first two days of the conference emphasized the basics of trauma-informed work with children from the vantage points of...
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Familiar With Any Summer Camps or Programs for COAs?
There are some great trauma-sensitive camps and other summer programs that are being planned for children impacted by parental addiction. We’d love to create a list for people who contact us looking for these opportunities, but WE NEED YOU! Let us know about programs available in your area, whether a workshop, weekly meeting, or weekend camp by emailing info or the website URL to nacoa@nacoa.org. We will post this list on our website and social media. Thank you to everyone who provides...